The Thoughts and Writing of Robert Wherry

2017 Summer August 21 Monday

Relatively good walk this morning, slight breeze, 76% humidity. I thought the humidity was higher, than the breeze was blowing it away, if that can actually happen.

Slight breeze this morning on the patio, it is very pleasant, especially when the breeze blows. It appears to be getting hot again, which is nice since the days of summer are now limited, in fact, calendar wise, there is only 30 more days of summer.

Pace this morning was 1 second faster than my goal. BPM was 99 and my distance was .18.

Somehow I didn’t realize we would even be able to observe the ellipse here until a discussion Saturday night. It will be an 85% eclipse, not a total, but 85% is still quite a bit.

All of the news was about the “100% band” and I just kind of ignored the news, like I do anytime the news media gets carried away about something. I don’t really mean that as a criticism, that is just what the news media does.

Anyway, so you can’t buy an “eclipse glasses” now. I don’t really want to even see the eclipse, I just don’t want to damage my eyes by accidentally looking at the sun.

Since today is “field day” I can’t really avoid being outside. Actually I expect I can observe the eclipse better on my computer or tv than real life anyway.

Not the an eclipse isn’t impressive. I was in a total eclipse once, and it is very eerie how everything just kind of halts. I can understand why people want to see it. Probably if I had realized it was an 85% eclipse I would have arranged some vacation leave, but i didn’t.

Listening this morning to the “Great Course” on the Industrial Revolution about Wedgewood, the great pottery/vase/tableware etc. creator.

Actually there were a lot of amazing things about him. He was an apprentice until he was 29, and he had his leg cut off a around 18 years of age.

He apparently had natural talent, and he fact the had his leg cut off meant he couldn’t run some of the equipment at the time, so he became an expert in detail work and repair/replacement.

He instituted a lot of innovative marketing practices. He wasn’t only a great pottery maker he was also a great marketer.

As an example, he instituted (long before it was common or even thought of), “return if not satisfied”. Buy one, get one free, catalogs, as well as targeting the luxury market and having yearly changes in designs etc.

He also was just good at promotion and used sales to royalty to promote his product.

He also was alert to (what are now called) patent trolls (or extortists) and countered that by insuring that all of his workers were specialized in one part of the product and didn’t know the entire process.

He also realized the importance of canals and (through what is now called insider knowledge) made sure the canal came past his factory. He also pioneered the use of steam engines in the manufacturing process.

As I noted yesterday, it is amazing that, for that time, such innovations were made in products. It is equally amazing that someone thought of the innovations in management and marketing at that time. Where did they get the time? Everything moved much slower back then!

Hopefully, my friend, the possum, won’t be bothered by the pest control treatment. Still plenty of snakes, pests etc for him to eat, I’m sure.